What parents should be looking for is the opportunity for their children to have their lives transformed by what happens inside the classroom and out of it.  And that can’t come without access to faculty who have had the opportunity to recharge their own intellectual reservoirs.”

Most professors have no business going on “sabbaticals” at all and certainly not every six years.”

Sabbatical at most places is not a year but a semester, and faculty are expected to do research and, at some institutions, provide evidence of production. Hm, pretty cushy!”

As for the sabbatical, of course the root is from sabbath, or rest. Fields were allowed to lie fallow every seven years so that they would be more productive. (The extension of this is the jubilee, which is the year following seven sabbaticals, when sins and debts are forgiven and all may start anew.) It’s not a new idea, by the way, and many institutions other than universities award them; I can’t see how it can be figured into the equation of the current cost of tuition.”